Oral Ulcers

Mouth ulcers are sores that appear in the mouth, often on the inside of the cheeks, tongue and gingival tissue.

They are painful and take 7-10 days to heal.

Ulcers in oral cavity: Traumatic ulcer

The traumatic ulcer of the oral mucous membranes is a lesion that is caused by some form of trauma.

Different injuries

- Biting the mucosa

- Denture irritate

- Toothbrush injury

- Exposure of the mucous membrane to a sharp tooth or carious lesion

- Injury to the mucosa by some other external irritant

- Cotton roll injury

- Factitial injuries

Are accidentally self induced injuries on the basic of habit with a frequent psychogenic backgrounde. Gulcer of the tongue caused during an epileptic seizure

- Habits such as lip – biting

- Cheek – biting

- Unconscious gingival trauma.

- Emotional distress

- Orthodontic or denture injury

- Aggressive dental cleaning

- Infections

- Hormonal changes

- Hypersensitivity to certain foods

- Strawberries, lemon, chocolate nut etc

- Nutritional deficiencies, iron, folic acid, vitamin B deficiency or lack of track elements such as zinc.

2. Candidiasis - also known as oral thrush is fungal infection that occurs in the mouth or throat due to an overgrowth of yeast.

1. Canker Sores – These are small white or yellow centre lesions with a red border. They develop in the mouth on the tongue, inside cheek area, lips, gumline and throat areas, They are not contagious
2. Cold Sores- These sores appear as clusters of red, raised blisters outside the mouth typically around the lips, but they can develop under the nose or under the chin. They are highly contagious.
3. Tooth abscess – This occurs when there is a bacterial infection in the nerve of the tooth.

Treatment:

The treatment is palliative and symptomatic

- Antimicrobial agent

- Localized corticosteroids

- Topical anaestheticslike oralgel or dologel

- Preventing injuries of mouth i.e changing the toothbrush regularly and changing ill-fitting denture

- Vitamin supplements such as VITAMIN C tablets and vitamin B-COMPLEX

- W/S rinse and baking soda rinses.

- Peroxyl mouth sore rinse

- Chlorhexidine oral rinse